EVs

Winter is here …for EV batteries. ( www.fortune.com)

I have heard about this complaint from a few friends who live in 4 season cities and own Teslas. They’ve told me that Tesla batteries can lose almost 50% of their charge due to cold weather. That’s on top of the fact that the car generally has to work harder in slippery, snow conditions – an additional strain on the battery.

This isn’t something a software update can fix but as mentioned this is a battery cell problem so EV companies across the board should all have to deal similar issues.

With the issue of the door handle freezing, Tesla is finally having to deal with the challenges of designing, manufacturing and selling a vehicle for the masses. Back when they sold

When you’re trying to reach 200-300K customers/annum, usage cases that weren’t part of design considerations increase significantly. Behind the scenes, during the product development phase for the Model 3, there were probably some design reviews where engineers argued with designers about how their designs may cause failures or quality issues which in the case of the frozen door handle, the designers obviously won that argument. Maybe Elon now sees that in most cases unless truly critical to the vehicle, form should always follow function.

BTW, if this was not an issue that was brought up in design review prior to launch of the Model 3, then they need better engineers and definitely need to do more cold weather testing.

#Tesla #designflaw #frozendoorhandle #gettingbigger

Tesla acting and sounding more and more like a traditional OEM. ( www.businessinsider.com)

I remember being taking part in ‘cost down’ meetings in a prior life. A lot of it was just coming up with new ways to beat up suppliers so that they would concede another few pennies/part so that we (the OEM) could make our cost savings goals for the quarter.

In Tesla’s case, there could be some really significant low hanging fruit due to the unnecessarily complicated design and manufacturing that they baked into the Model S, X and 3. With that said, Einstein said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” so hopefully he’s not only taken Munro’s suggestions into real consideration as part of these ‘cost down’ opportunities, but that he’s also looking at process; decision-making and cost-benefit analysis.

Toyota’s philosophy is that quality should be designed into the entire process so that there isn’t a need to repair anything on the back end. Makes you wonder if Elon has hired a few manufacturing guru’s that can put his team in check and/or work the miracles necessary when he overrides their cost savings suggestions.

#Qualityisjob1 #costdowns #Tesla #Toyota #lowhangingfruit

Broken down NIO causes traffic jam on Chang’an Jie. ( www.scmp.com)

Similar to the article above about Tesla design, seems like this was a rookie mistake by the NIO design team. If it takes many steps to start the software update process, where was the salesperson when this test driver was accepting the steps for the update?

Nonetheless, as protocol for test drives, NIO should require that their product managers/salespeople make sure that every morning prior to any test drives, the software is updated so that this wouldn’t happen regardless of how time consuming or how easy/difficult it is for the customer to activate the software update.

This is more of a no harm no foul mistake, but take it from someone that lives off of and has to drive on Chang’an Jie quite often, the traffic jams on that road can be quite time consuming and consequently extremely frustrating. Next time though, at least I may know the reason for it.

#NIO #softwareupdate #trafficjam #wearestuck

Economy       

The importance of ‘tech’ metals to the future of EVs in China and the U.S. ( www.businessinsider.com)

Yet another reason why the U.S. and China’s economic futures are tied to one another. As the March 1^st deadlines approaches for the Chinese and U.S. trade negotiations teams, they have yet to come up with an amenable deal for both sides. And even if they can agree on something that’ll prevent more tariffs to be triggered by the U.S., the long term prospects of trying to decouple the reliance that both sides have on each other economically still seem to be trying pretty remote.

I am optimistic a deal can be made in the short term (by March 1^st), but that structural differences will still make for a challenging next few years for both sides.

#tradewar #tariffs #usvsthem #noonewins

Will being the first to launch a fully autonomous vehicle even matter? ( www.futurism.com)

If some analysts are to be believed, then control and monetizing the data is what drives the valuation of the AI companies.

That’s one of the main reasons why Morgan Stanley analysts’ valuations of GM’s Cruise Automation ($9B) is so much lower than Waymo’s ($37B). Waymo’s ability to data mine and monetize that data, which you could argue is part of their DNA, is the biggest reason why they’re long Waymo, especially in the long term.

Will the traditional OEMs be able to learn quickly ‘on the fly’ in order to generate revenue from the data like Waymo and other tech companies? That remains to be seen but it looks like there are a few at least that aren’t that confident the OEMs can.

#datalikeoil #Waymo #CruiseAutomation #overvalued #undervalued

Mobility

Along comes the e-bike. ( www.forbes.com)

With Version II of the ‘last mile’ solution, the Viner brothers have something on their hands. Now the unicorns in the market can definitely quickly copy their business, so the Viners will also need to quickly deploy their capital quickly to other markets before the key markets get saturated with a bunch of ‘me too’ e-bike clones that can do just about the same thing theirs are able to.

As I stated in my 2019 predictions, I think these types of e-bikes stand a much better chance of longevity in the market due to being safer and their ability to ride longer on them vs. e-scooters.

If these e-bike startups can work with municipalities to carve out some decent sidewalk real estate so that they can be properly parked in ‘safe’ zones this could be step #1 of e-bikes replacing e-scooters as the preferred mode of transportation for folks living or visiting the city.

#Ibelieve #e-bikes #swappablebatteries #lastmilesolution

OEMs

A new way of thinking for a traditional OEM? ( www.engadget.com)

Open source hardware? Not exactly but VW is considering something radically different than anything they’ve done before business-wise. If they share their electric car platform they could reach break-even much more quickly, not to mention have access to all the data their customers are gathering as well which we know from the article above is really where some analysts believe creates the value in the future ‘autonomous vehicle’ companies.

Again, what they do with that data and more specifically whether they’re able to capitalize on it by developing new services, products or ways to monetize will be where they will create shareholder value.

I must applaud the VW Group for at least kicking around, some might say, drastic new ideas to try to transform the company. I would argue that due to the challenges of the recent past, namely diesel-gate, it was probably most important for them to do that to remain a relevant competitor in a quickly changing environment.

We’ll find out if they follow through on all these ‘proposed’ ideas they’ve announced or that seem to be in the pipeline, and if they do follow through, whether they have the horses to execute to plan.

#VWGroup #platformsharing #tryingnewthings #datastillthekey